tern wished this thing or the other. The
answer had always been that the master wished the paths and the
shrubs and the flowers to be just as she wished them. But now not
a word was spoken. For an hour she walked among the paths, and
then returned to her own room. Would she have her dinner in the
dining-room? If so, the master would have his in the library. Then
she could restrain herself no longer, but burst into tears. No; she
would have no dinner. Let them bring her a cup of tea in her own
room.

There she sat thinking of her condition, wondering from hour to hour
what was to be the end of it. From hour to hour she sat, and can
hardly have been said to think. She lost herself in pondering first
over her own folly and then upon his gross injustice. She could not
but marvel at her own folly. She had in truth known from the first
moment in which she had resolved to accept his offer, that it was
her duty to tell him the story of her adventure with Sir Francis
Geraldine. It should have been told indeed before she had accepted
his offer, and she could not now forgive herself in that she had been
silent. "You must know my story," she should have said, "before there
can be a word more spoken between us." And then with a clear brow and
without a tremor in her voice she could have told it. But she had
allowed herself to be silent, simply because he had told the same
story, and then the moment had never come. She could not forgive
herself. She could never entirely forgive herself, even though the
day should come in which he might pardon her.

But would he ever pardon her? Then her mind would fly away to the
injustice of his condemnation. He had spoken to her darkly, as though
he had intended to accuse her of some secret understanding with Sir
Francis. He had believed her to be guilty of some underhand plot
against his happiness, carried on with the man to whom she had
been engaged! Of what was it that he had imagined her to be guilty?
What was the plot of which in his heart he accused her? Then her
imagination looked out and seemed to tell her that there could be but
one. Her husband suspected her of having married him while her heart
was still the property of that other man! And as she thought of
this, indignation for the time almost choked her grief. Could it be
possible that he, to whom she had given everything with such utter
unreserve, whom she had made the god of her idolatry, to whom she had
been exactly that which he